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The implementation of BMPs requires an appreciation of the issues involved by
practicing land mangers. To this end there is a need to connect the competent
authorities developing catchment management plans, with land managers and
research on the reduction of diffuse pollution impacts.
The aim of this paper is to summarise the development of a catchment initiative in
terms of: (i) increasing awareness and stakeholder participation in relation to best
management practice and the need for catchment management, (ii) improving land
management practices in relation to streams and rivers and (iii) the establishment
and use of the work as a demonstration site illustrating practical examples of best
practice.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The Tarland Burn is the most westerly tributary of the River Dee (Aberdeenshire,
Scotland) that is dominated by intensive land use. These land uses, as characterised
by the Land Cover of Scotland 1988 dataset, comprise: Heather moorland 7.9%,
unimproved grassland 9.7 %, plantation forestry 19.1 %, mixed/broadleaved
woodland 1.8%, improved grassland 35.7%, built-up area 0.7% and arable 25.1%.
Farming in the catchment is typically mixed cereal and livestock, dominated by
the fattening of cattle and malting barley production and some sheep on improved
pasture on the higher ground. Across the catchment area that is used for agriculture,
the practice is to utilise the maximum possible area, including up to the stream
margins. When the riparian fields are used for cattle grazing the streams provide the
cattle waterings.
Earlier work on the River Dee (Langan et al., 1997; SEPA, 2000) and an initial
examination of the temporal variation in water quality at the bottom of the Tarland
catchment indicated there were significant issues related to diffuse pollution,
particularly faecal indicator organisms (FIO), N and P losses. On the basis of this
information, an invitation to the major stakeholders in the catchment was sent out to
discuss these results. As a result of this meeting, various issues were identified (see
results), one of which was the need for more information on water quality variability.
To assess the spatial variability in nitrogen, phosphorus and suspended solids
across the catchment, monthly dip samples have been collected at 16 points since
2001. At the sites, quarterly samples for FIOs were collected and benthic macro
invertebrates sampled using the standard SEPA 3-min kick sample. The invertebrate
data are reported as a BMWP (Biological Monitoring Working Party) score (Hawkes,
1997) used to classify waters according to the tolerance of different families to
pollution. These sites and parameters were selected to give a series of data in which
the generation of water quality within each major tributary across the catchment
could be examined. Chemical samples were returned to the laboratory and analysed
for nitrate, ammoniacal nitrogen and phosphate within 3 days using automated
colorimetric methods.
This monitoring and survey data provides a set of objective information against
which together with discussions with stakeholders it has been possible to identify
priority areas in which intervention management should be initiated. The intervention
measures trialled are BMPs largely based on the requirements of agri-environment
funding and the PEPPFA Code (Scottish Executive, 2005) with a view to assessing
there efficacy for both water quality and invertebrate ecology and to demonstrate
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